


Adopting a Plant

by reynabethh



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Death, Grief, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Nico/Will is in the past, murder mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reynabethh/pseuds/reynabethh
Summary: Jason feels he needs a plant to brighten up his place. When he gets back from the greenhouse, Nico is in his apartment.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Adopting a Plant

There weren’t many people at the greenhouse when he arrived. No one was thinking about what to put in their garden while there was still half a foot of snow outside. Everyone had bought their house plants back at the beginning of winter. 

There was only one employee, and he seemed rather busy. He figured the company didn’t do much hiring during this time of the year. 

In any case, this was a bit of a problem for Jason, since he was too polite to interrupt someone who looked busy. Instead, he wandered around the greenhouse with next to no knowledge about plants, hoping he could find something to brighten up his room. He even forgot his phone at his apartment, so he couldn’t look anything up. 

Only a few of the plants were flowering, so he had no idea was most of them would look like when they did flower. 

As he walked through the greenhouse, Jason’s feeling of excitement about getting a plant was fading. That was, until he made it to the sign in front of the back table. It read: “ _Roses for sale! 70% off!_ ” as well as several other details that he didn’t bother trying to read. His excitement flooded right back into him.

He knew what roses were! And he could definitely find out how to care for one. There was probably lots of information on how to grow roses online. He grabbed the closest plant and hurried to pay for it, making sure he wished the employee a nice day. 

It was late when Jason finally got home. He had so many errands to run after work, he hadn’t realized it was almost nine o’clock when he walked through his door… without using his key to unlock the door. _What the hell?_ Did he not lock the door when he left for work that morning? Wow, he really needed this plant to brighten up his life, if that was the case. 

He turned the lights on and walked into the kitchen to put his new rose down on the counter. Then he almost dropped his beloved new rose when he saw someone wrapped up in blankets in his kitchen. 

The person turned around to face him, holding a spoon and a container of cherry ice cream. “So what, you hate your job so much you want to be a gardener now?” He said.

Jason sighed. It was just Nico. Then his cheeks turned slightly read as he remembered how attractive he found him. “I do not hate my job.” He gently put the plant down in the sink. “What are you doing here, anyways? And why are you eating my ice cream?” 

“Don’t worry, I bought more.” He said after swallowing a spoonful of ice cream.

“That’s not the point.” Jason turned away from the sink to properly look at him. He was just as pale as ever, but only his face was visible since the rest of his body was wrapped up in a skull patterned blanket. Some of his hair fell in front of his eyes, but most of it was pushed behind his ears. His eyes looked red and puffy, as if he’d been crying, although it was probably due to something else since Nico didn’t really cry… ever. In any case, Jason thought he looked amazing. 

Instead of replying, Nico just stared at him and licked at another scoop of ice cream. Jason tried not to think about his tongue licking things and asked “Are you o-”

“What kind of plant did you get?” Nico interrupted him. 

“It’s a rose.” Then Jason decided to lower his voice, hoping that would make him appear more serious. “But Nico, you have to tell me what you’re doing here. Otherwise, you can go back to your place.”

“No!” Nico looked surprised. “Well, I…” He looked away. “My boyfriend dumped me. He still has a key to my apartment, so I can’t go back there. I can’t go to Reyna’s because I went to her place last time I went through a breakup. I can’t go to Hazel’s because she and Frank are very intimate together these days, and I do _not_ want to see that.” Nico spoke very quickly, and when he was finished, he gulped down two more scoops of ice cream. 

Jason didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say “good,” since he hated that mortal boyfriend of Nico’s. In his defense, everyone else hated him too. Jason wasn’t jealous… or anything like that. No one understood why he kept dating mortals from tinder ever since his breakup with Will. Not Reyna, not Hazel, not Piper and not Jason.

However, “good” didn’t sound like the response Nico needed right now. Instead, he said “Um… Okay,” and immediately felt like an idiot. What kind of response was _that_?

Nico didn’t seem to mind, though. While Jason stood there awkwardly wanting to punch himself, he finished the container of ice cream. Then he went back to staring intensely into Jason’s eyes. 

In a failed attempt to not blush, he looked back at his rose. He turned on the tap to water it. 

Nico came up beside him and put the ice cream container down on the counter. “Are you sure that’s not too much water for it?”

“No, what do you think?”

“I’m a son of Hades, how should I know?”

“Oh yeah? Well, most gardeners don’t have a mother named Demeter or Ceres, and they still know stuff about roses.”

“Oh yeah? Well we’re not gardeners, Jason!” They looked at each other for a second. Jason tried not to smile, he loved it when Nico said his name. Nico continued, “We could just turn off the tap and look it up.”

“Right,” Jason said, looking at Nico while he was now looking at the tap. He moved his hand to the tap to turn it off. 

Then his face went bright red, and he froze. Nico’s hand was also on the tap. That meant that his hand was now on Nico’s hand! 

_Dude, relax. You’re 23. You can handle touching your friend’s hand._ Jason tried to calm down, hoping his dick wouldn’t notice that he was touching Nico di Angelo’s hand. He kept looking at Nico, he couldn’t pull his eyes away. 

Nico also looked like he was frozen. He kept staring at the sink.

After a couple of seconds of Jason not know what was going on, Nico removed his hand from the tap, walked towards the freezer to take out another container of ice cream, and left the kitchen. 

After a couple more seconds, Jason took his hand off the tap, went to get his phone, and looked up how much water roses need. 

The next morning, Jason’s alarm went off at seven. It was a Saturday morning, he had no idea why he’d set it so early. 

That was, until he saw the reminder he wrote for himself. It read: ‘Wake up! The rose needs one half cup of water in the mornings!’ He groaned and rolled over. After listening to the alarm for a good minute and a half, he got up and stumbled towards the kitchen, where he found Nico looking at the plant.

Upon the sight of seeing him awake before ten o’clock, Jason thought he might be dreaming and considered going back to bed. Instead, he blurted out his thoughts. “Are you awake this early in the morning, or am I dreaming?”

Nico ignored his question. “I gave it half a cup of water. That’s what most websites instructed for the best results.” That was odd. Hadn’t Nico gone off to cry about whatever-his-name-was and not read about caring for roses? Before Jason could comment on the situation, Nico said some more surprising things in a surprisingly casual tone. “You know, I don’t actually sleep in that often. I usually stay in bed after waking up so I can masturbate. I just thought I should water Diana first.” 

Jason coughed when he heard Nico say the word “masturbate.” He tried to ignore that part. He managed to squeak out “Diana?” without turning too red.

Nico smiled at him, with an actual real smile. “I named the plant Diana, after Wonder Woman, since both the rose and Wonder Woman are amazing. I mean, she’s pretty amazing for surviving the amount of water we subjected her to last night.”

Jason smiled. Did Nico just make a joke? Also, did he just complement his choice of plant? He felt oddly proud about that. “You think my rose is as amazing as Wonder Woman?” At this point, he was pretty sure this was a dream.

“Yes, especially considering the colour of flower you chose.” Jason didn’t remember the colour being specified. He must have forgotten it, although he felt that Nico didn’t need to know about his forgetfulness.

“I’m glad you like it” he said as he smiled like an idiot. 

Nico kept smiling, which further confirmed that Jason was having a very good dream. 

Their smiling was interrupted by the coffee maker beeping. Nico walked over to it and poured the coffee into two mugs. He hesitantly handed one to Jason. “I, um…” Nico stared at the rose, then glanced back at him. “Thank you for letting me stay here.” He whispered. 

“It’s no problem. Thanks for helping with, uh… Diana.” Jason whispered back, unsure why he couldn’t raise his voice.

“Jason?” He looked at him with the same intensity as the night before, which was the same intensity as many other times.

“He didn’t really break up with me.” His tone was even, not giving away any emotion.

“Okay..?” Well, at least the dream had been good for the first part, now it seemed to be going downhill. Maybe he should start pinching himself awake. “Did something else happen?” 

“He made some… comments. About Will. They weren’t very nice.” Jason didn’t say anything and decided to wait for him to continue. 

Will had died three years ago. Sometimes, demigods who knew him would get together and share nice stories about him. But no one could talk about his death, especially not Nico. 

Nico took in a deep breath. “Apparently they knew each other. They went to the same high school. I wouldn’t know, school was never something he liked to talk about.” He paused again. “He said Will wasn’t going to go anywhere in life, that it was a good thing he died so I wouldn’t have to be stuck with him for the rest of my life.” Nico’s voice still wasn’t showing any sign of emotion. 

Jason choked on his coffee. Who the fuck said things like that? “So did you tell him to fuck off?”

“No.” 

He tried to calm down. Getting upset wouldn’t make Nico feel any better. Unfortunately, he was now very upset. Not only was he mad at the guy for talking like that about his dead friend, but… For starters, how _dare_ he talk to Nico like that. While he was trying to think of something to say, a few sparks flew from the light bulb. Nico didn’t look alarmed, but he took a deep breath for good measure. “Why not?”

“I couldn’t say anything. I felt like, if either of us moved, I would kill him. I wanted to see blood flow out from his throat. I felt out of control. The worst part was that if I did…you know, move, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. He knows nothing about my powers. I would have killed him. So I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. Fortunately, my building had a power outage. The lights went out, and I disappeared into the shadows.” He put his coffee cup down, mostly untouched, and went back to staring at Diana, running his fingers over her thorns. 

Jason knew Nico was feeling like a monster, but he couldn’t help but feel proud of him. If this situation had happened two years ago, that guy would be dead. There wouldn’t be any waiting for a power outage to happen. Nico wouldn’t have been able to deal with the pain, and he would have killed him. “Will would be proud of you,” he said.

“What?” Emotion broke out on his face. Jason couldn’t tell which one it was, but it certainly wasn’t positive.

“Nico, the power outage isn’t what saved him. You had enough self control to hold yourself back. You tolerated the pain. _I’m_ proud of you, and you can’t argue with me about that.”

Nico grunted and looked at him. “Just drink your coffee.”

It was about 7:00 when Jason started thinking about what to make for supper. He’d been out most of the day with Piper and Leo, so he hadn’t had much time to think about it. In all honesty, he still didn’t want to think about it. He decided he’d only think about it when he got hungry, which was always a mistake, but he just really, really didn’t want to think about it.

He went to check up on Diana. She looked fine, despite being left alone since Nico disappeared without notice that morning. Jason was sort of hoping he would be there when he got back, so they could think about supper together. 

He tried not to dwell on it. He sat down on his bed, took out his laptop and typed “cheap fertilizer for roses” into google. He added a couple of different ones to his cart on amazon. Just when he was about to click on ‘place order,’ he heard a crash in the kitchen. 

“Hello?” He yelled. _Idiot_ , Jason though, _as if a burglar would say ‘hi’ back_. He sighed and got out of bed. 

When he got there, he found a familiar figure trying to open a bag of… something. Jason’s face brightened up and he smiled. “You’re back.”

Nico turned around to look at him. “I thought Diana could use some fertilizer, so I spent the day looking for some. Most professionals I talked to said this was the best one.”

Seriously? Nico spent most of the day looking for fertilizer? Jason believed him, but he wasn’t sure he bought the whole ‘talking to people’ part of it. “Me too.” He said, still smiling. Wait, no! He didn’t spend the day looking for fertilizer, he just also thought Diana could use some. “I mean-- uh, yeah. The fertilizer is a good idea.” Nico nodded at him and Jason blushed, so it was a typical interaction between the two of them. “I do have scissors, you know” he noted.

“Don’t need them.”

“Mmhmm” Jason mumbled to himself, got the scissors out and cut the bag of manure open.

Surprisingly, Nico didn’t get upset for not being allowed to do it on his own. He just said “thanks” and sat on the ground, looking somewhat defeated. Jason felt bad for only being able to think about how pretty he looked at that moment. 

Instead of pulling him up and telling him to cheer up, he sat down next to him. “Thanks for that. I’m sure Diana will appreciate it.” 

Nico nodded. Jason didn’t blush. 

“Look, about this morning--” Nico suddenly got tense, so he didn’t push it. They sat together in silence for 15 minutes, watching his plant -- which was starting to feel like _their_ plant. He finally continued speaking. “I just want to say that even if you had killed him, I’d still be proud of you.”

 _What the fuck did he just say?_ Nico looked at him, shocked and confused. He would _not_ be proud of him for murdering a mortal. What he’d meant to say was that he still wouldn’t see him as a monster, that he’d still love him… but those were things he couldn’t just say.

“Really?” Nico asked.

“Yes.” It didn’t feel like he was lying. Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he would be proud of such an act. Maybe he was the monster. 

They sat in silence for another hour. It wasn’t awkward. He didn’t get hungry. However, Nico apparently did. He shadow-travelled out and came back with a bag of almonds. Jason accepted the almonds as supper. He thanked Nico. They continued to sit in silence. 

When the microwave clock read nine o’clock, he realized Nico was asleep. He got up to get him a blanket with the intention of going to bed himself afterwards, but when he came back he couldn’t stop himself from laying down and falling asleep next to Nico and Diana, on his kitchen floor. 

Jason was the first one to get up the next morning, so he took it upon himself to get Diana’s half cup of water this time. He went to get it in the bathroom, of course, out of fear of waking the pretty guy sleeping next to him. 

Pouring the water into the rose’s pot, he found that some fertilizer had already been placed in it, which meant that Nico had gotten up in the night to put it there. And that meant that Nico had gone back to sleep on the floor next to him on purpose, instead of going to the couch or his guest room. He tried not to get too excited about the implications of that.

Unfortunately, Jason was very bad at not getting excited. What if he’d brought him to sleep in his bed instead of sleeping on the floor together? Being in a smaller space, (his bed was considerably smaller than the kitchen floor) they’d be closer together. He might be able to feel his breath on his skin-- maybe even feel his morning boner against his leg and maybe… No. They’d known each other for years. If Nico wanted to sleep with him, it would’ve happened a long time ago. 

Jason watched him as he groaned and rolled over and-- _fuck_ , he was hard. Then he had to lock himself in the bathroom for the twenty minutes it took him to get off, thinking of Nico making that groaning sound as he fucked him.

Nico woke up at eight, exactly an hour after him. Jason was sitting at the table, attempting to read about the symbolism of roses in literature in spite of his dyslexia.

The first minute, he looked groggy and cute. The second minute, he looked determined and distressed. The third, he crawled to the shadow of the table and disappeared. 

For all three of those minutes, Jason didn’t know what was going on. Whatever happened, he had a bad feeling about it. 

Before he had time to worry about it too much, Nico came back with another bag of almonds and a couple of pomegranates about half an hour later. The stores weren’t open yet, so he wasn’t sure where he got the food from, but he didn’t ask.

“How is Diana?” Nico asked as he took a knife and cut open one of the pomegranates. His hand was shaking. 

Jason frowned. “She’s looking great, probably due to the fertilizer you gave her. And look--” he tugged on Nico’s shirt. “--It looks like we’re gonna get a flower soon!” He touched the newfound bud with the tip of his finger. 

Nico smiled. His hand was suddenly shaking a lot less. “Awesome!” He put down the fruit and the knife, then kissed Jason on the cheek. 

If Jason was frozen when his hand accidentally touched Nico’s on the tap, now he was certainly paralyzed. Or maybe it was the world around him that was paralyzed. He stopped thinking. Nico was still smiling, seemingly unphased by doing something that was totally out of character for him. 

So Jason grabbed his waist and pulled him in for a kiss. He didn’t pull away. He kissed him back. Jason tried to pick him up but Nico fell to his knees and pressed his face against his dick. “Good boy,” he found himself saying as he unzipped his jeans.

Nico just smirked up at him before taking his cock into his mouth. 

After they had sex, they sat on the table for a while. It was the same silence as the night before, but this time Jason’s dick was out and he couldn’t think. So it was Nico’s turn to break the silence. “Would you like me to do up your pants for you?” He laughed. It was nice to see him laugh. Jason didn’t know what to say. Nico seemed to understand that so he kept talking. “I broke up with him.”

That prompted a breathless “oh” from Jason. 

“I just did it, actually. He was staying at my apartment. That’s where I got the food from, and I got my key back.” He took it out of his pocket and showed it to him, “not that I really need it, though.” 

His words helped Jason’s thoughts become coherent again. “That’s great, Nico.” Sure, it was great, but Jason still wanted to hit the guy. “Also, what just happened?” 

“I put your penis in my mouth.” Nico got up and handed him a piece of pomegranate. “Did you like it? I couldn’t get you to cum.” 

“Yes! Yes I did,” he hurried to say, “I already came this morning, though.” He wanted to add that he was thinking about him when he did, that he loved him, that he’d wanted this for so long. “But, why?”

“Because I like you.”

“You do?”

“Yes, that’s what I just said.” He nibbled at an almond. “Do you… like me?”

 _Yes!_ “Yes.” _I love you, Nico._ “I do. A lot, Nico. Like you, I mean.” Damn, he really hoped that made sense. “Uh… what I mean to say is that I like you a lot.” Jesus, he felt like a twelve year old. “How long have you…?”

“Liked you?” Nico finished for him. “Since I was sixteen.”

“But you were still with Will then.”

“Yeah. I always… felt bad about liking you while I was with him. I felt even worse about it after he died, like I should have devoted more of my thoughts to him while I could.” He stopped and looked at Jason. “But I guess I can’t live in the past forever.” 

Was Nico actually talking about Will’s death? He felt as if some huge pressure was taken off his heart. He pulled Nico’s chair closer and kissed him. “I’m glad you feel that you can talk to me about this.”

They basked in each other’s warmth for the rest of the morning. At around noon, Nico got a call from Hazel and left to go see her. At the mention of Nico’s sister, Jason remembered he was supposed to go see his own sister that day. He scrambled out of his apartment after Nico and flew off to see her for the afternoon. 

Nico was already at his apartment when he got back. He was in the kitchen. “Come see the flower, Jason! It’s beautiful.” He sounded excited. 

He rushed into the kitchen, where he found Nico looking at Diana. She had one flower, and it was as black as Nico’s leather jacket. “Nico, did you turn the rose black?”

“Don’t be silly, Jason. I don’t have any power over plants. This is the colour you chose. It turned out to be quite a nice black, don’t you think? When I read the label, I was worried it would be a very dark blue.” 

There was a label? No wonder Nico was so excited about the colour. Jason was expecting a deep red, or something like that. Nonetheless, Nico was very excited about it, and so he decided that he loved the black. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Nico wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck and kissed him. “I ordered pizza so we don’t have to sit on the floor eating almonds like yesterday. It should be here soon.” 

Jason kissed him again. 

“I made sure to ask for lots of olives on it.” Nico added.

“Dude! I love olives on pizza!” 

“I know you do.” 

They made out while waiting for the pizza to arrive, and they kissed between bites while eating it. Just when Jason was telling him about Thalia’s new interest in a special kind of bow, his alarm went off, telling he had to go to bed. 

His ‘go-to-bed’ alarm only went off when he had to work the next morning.“I’m gonna have to go to bed.” He sighed, “You can stay, though. I mean, if you want to.”

“Can we sleep in the bed this time, or would you rather the kitchen floor again?” Nico laughed. That laugh was so beautiful, it made Jason’s heart feel free. 

He grabbed a pillow from his couch and threw it at him. Nico dodged it, still laughing while making a run for the bedroom. 

His phone rang again, this time with his “check-the-news” alarm. He always looked through the news on Sundays just to make sure there weren’t any politics he’d have to discuss with his coworkers the next morning. 

There was only one headline that caught his eye. It read: ‘Local man dead, police declare it a homicide.’

He opened the article and was faced with a picture of the man Nico just broke up with. He shivered. _Nico did that,_ he thought. _Nico killed him_ . _Nico murdered him_. 

He closed his phone and left it on the couch. He went to his room and found Nico already asleep. He took his clothes off and got under the blankets, wrapping his arms around him. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. 

‘You’re not a monster, I still love you,’ is what he wanted to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops I kind of forgot that Diana is an actual roman goddess and not just wonder woman. (also i have this headcanon that Jason and Annabeth really like olives on their pizza and the others think it's weird.)
> 
> I don't know if I will continue this. I feel that this is it's natural ending but I dunno, what do you guys think?
> 
> kudos & comments are appreciated!


End file.
